Monthly Archives: June 2011

My first clear image of a water vole (or rat)

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I have always admired some of the other Abingdon Blogs.

Take Views of the Ock. When that blog started, the blogger was elated after weeks of searching to get an  indistinct blurred image of a water vole (I think they are also called water rats). Images got better and better until now the blogger seems able to find them at will, and has gone on to find other creatures like otters.
Signs
Today I saw my first water vole in the Margaret Brown Gardens, then almost immediately I saw five others. They scurried away, one down the riverside, the other five under the lavender.You can just see one cautiously peeping out to see if it is safe yet.
Signs
He / she then came out a bit further…
Signs
Then finally came into full view. My first clear image of a water vole (or is it a rat?). Just to add “Many people, including pest controllers, builders and developers, mistake the endangered water vole for the brown rat and accidentally poison them”

Old Gaol trench

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Twickenham House
It was not easy for this lorry to reverse through the gate at Twickenham House. It came within inches of the houses opposite in East St Helen Street, then within inches of cars parked either side, and just fitted through the gates. But the driver managed it without injury as far as I am concerned.
Twickenham House
That was last week, and since then a trench has been dug and services laid through to the new Old Gaol development. I can imagine the lights flickering and going dim all the way along East St Helen Street when the new Old Gaol restaurants are first opened.